The Triangle
by gschelt
Summary: Before the baby, before Degrassi, before everything and everyone else, there was Jane and Mia. Enjoy forgetting the realities of the triangle while it lasts. Femslash.
1. Chapter 1

_**Author's Note:** I love this pairing so much. Mia/Jane might possibly be my OTP for Degrassi, besides Darcy & every other female there is. Expect 3 or 4 more chapters for this. And please review!_  
_I own nothing._

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There were lots of pretty girls at Lakehurst. You could find them at any given high school in the country, so this wasn't saying much. But if you had to go to Lakehurst, you were lucky enough that even a school like this had eye candy. If all you were going after was looks, you could certainly do worse.

The thing about this school, though, was the triangle. When it came to girls, they were either poor, slutty, or mean. A lot of the hottest ones were all three. And they may not have been all three at once, but every single girl was at least one, or some kind of combination. You look at the combinations, and things get interesting.

A select few, maybe ten percent, were rich girls, but most of them were sluts and all of them definitely made up for it with bitchiness. Holly J. Sinclair, for example, was a girl who was neither poor nor slutty, but she was definitely mean. And even though you couldn't touch unless your parents were lawyers or doctors, you could look.

Then there were the good girls, the nice ones who didn't sleep around, but none of them came from money. Those were usually the meek ones, with average to good looks and bulging bookbags. The few at this school who actually tried, since the rich girls had other options out of this shithole and the trashy girls knew they never would. Those good girls were probably the most decent human beings of the Lakehurst girls, occupying the most harmless single side of the triangle, but they really weren't the most exciting.

I liked to consider myself the exception to that side of the triangle, though. I was lacking the mean and slutty factors, but I wasn't one of those bland good girls. I would take being lumped into that category as an insult.

Though the subject of my promiscuity may have been a different story under different circumstances. And I think you can figure out what circumstances I mean, if I'm going on about the hot girls at school.

Okay, fuck subtlety. I'm gay, and that's why I didn't fill out the slutty side.

Yeah. All those girls, and the overwhelming majority was addicted to dick. I was the only exception (that I knew of). See, the thing about Lakehurst was that it wasn't the most gay-friendly school; it tends to be like that with most relatively shitty schools, where a good chunk of the student body happened to be degenerates who got a kick out of taunting people who were different. The only other out kids I knew of at Lakehurst were two guys, both of them flamers, who got their asses kicked regularly. I flew under the radar, but maybe that's because I had a thin connection to those bullies. The family sort. Either way, no one fucked with me.

So anyway. Back to the triangle. The saddest two-side combo had to be poor and slutty. Those were the girls that you actually felt really bad for, because they were nice girls but they had bad luck and some poor choices. If you weren't careful, they could break your heart just watching them push their own self-destruct buttons.

So I tried not to watch.

But eventually, I couldn't help myself. I'm a fly on the wall lots of times, lying low and just chilling out (that's how I came up with the triangle). I found my slutty/mean example (Heather Sinclair), I found my just mean example (Sinclair Junior), I found my just poor example (yours truly), and I found the perfect slutty/poor example.

Her name was Mia Jones.

At the start of a new semester I went from no classes with this girl to four classes with her. I felt like a wildlife journalist watching her, picking up on her habits. Advancing to more challenging classes, I theorized, did that signal ambition? Pretty and shy, well-spoken, was she a decent person? A few conversations proved it true. Cheerleader, too… she was probably easy. And now that you mention it, didn't she appear to try pretty hard with the boys in those four classes? Did I feel just the slightest twinge of jealousy? Maybe. But I don't think at that stage I knew I wanted her yet.

So I kind of observed her, noting with curiosity the kind of sadness with which she threw herself at those boys. As though she really was pretty smart, and knew well about that slippery slope. I wondered why she did it. I questioned a possible starvation for love, for affection.

They certainly weren't going to give it to her. I think she knew that, I could see it in her eyes. That's how I knew just how smart she was, and that's the part that broke my heart.

I needed to stop getting invested like I was. I didn't even know her.

So then the inevitable, the _deus ex machina_ for the design of our story together: a pairing as lab partners. I felt the ludicrous cliché of the situation as she dropped into the seat next to me with a shy smile, knew that this proximity might lead me to fall for her, a lost cause.

Pessimism, defeatism like that, it was going to kill me someday.

I couldn't help the way I leaned closer, though, and smiled. And I could almost hear the hiss and the sink of that hook and lure, as it snagged my gut and tugged at my stomach when she tucked a strand of hair behind her ear.

What were my feelings? Two separate compartments: I really liked her company and I really wanted to fuck her. Totally separate. It's hard to explain.

Okay, maybe I exaggerate. That first day as lab partners I wasn't sweating over her yet. I still looked at her relatively objectively, as a triangle case; but admittedly, I still tended to act different around pretty girls. Not to say I wasn't cool, though. I think I can say that I've always kept it cool.

She liked me, I could tell after a few days. I was easy to talk to and easy to get along with… I guess we were both easy, weren't we? But you know what, I liked her too. She was down to earth and always good to talk to. And talking to her, I actually forgot for a while that she was such a slutty girl; she didn't act like the rest of them. She seemed almost too smart.

I might have asked some questions about her sex life then, but I really didn't know her well enough yet. Besides, it was becoming more than just about the triangle, you know?


	2. Chapter 2

_**Author's Note:** I suck so hard at updating. Please forgive me._

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The insecure part of me was still surprised that Mia wanted to talk to me. I mean, she was a cheerleader. She was pretty as fuck. And it's not like I was a leper, but we were different. An unusual pair. I guess it didn't feel like that when we got to talking, though. It felt pretty okay, pretty right. And, if I may say so, there was something refreshing about me for a girl like her. No bullshit, no strings attached, you know?

It was halfway into the semester when she asked why we never hung out outside school. I shrugged. I didn't know why. I didn't want to assume we were anything more than acquaintances, than lab partners, in case I was mistaken. It was dumb of me, really, but I wasn't complaining. Getting to know Mia better was an opportunity I couldn't resist.

Of course, at first it was all study-related. Lab work together, after school and on weekends. It was interesting; Mia was way too smart to fill out the slutty side of the triangle. She was blowing my theory out of the water.

I never asked about that with her; her "extra-curriculars." I didn't want to know. That was me being a gentleman, I guess, wasn't it? Me trying to forget she did have a shortcoming.

It was easy to forget, easier than I had anticipated. She asked me about Friday night, hanging out, and I raised an eyebrow. Wasn't she bust already, I asked. Vague thoughts of The Ravine flashed through me like a tacky neon light. But no, she ended up at my house, in my basement, lounging on a beanbag chair and talking philosophy with me while Depeche Mode washed over the room from my cheap speakers. She liked my pensive 80s music, and also liked the artsy 90s grunge I put on the next weekend.

I was kind of at a loss for how to show Mia a good time, since I couldn't afford tickets to anything and generally didn't know what most girls did when they hung out. Boring her was a persistent fear of mine. But she was fine in the half-light of my basement, as we sipped on cans of Mexican apple soda and talked about college, divorce, the Titanic.

And then the night after, Saturdays with the guys, the drink would be beer and the talk would be pussy. For the first time in a long time I felt out of place.

One Friday we walked to the Mini-Mart a couple blocks away to get some junk food. A Nightmare on Elm Street was starting in twenty minutes, and there were no snacks in the house.

"Tortilla chips?" I suggested lazily as we wandered an aisle.

"You got salsa?" Mia asked absently, turning over a bag of licorice.

"Yeah, actually."

"Hmmm." She put the licorice back.

"It's pineapple."

She walked over to the freezers. "Mmm," she hummed, a small smile on her lips, "sounds good. Get the chips." I watched her bend over a freezer and hesitated a moment, hand floating over the plastic bag. The arch of her hips to her ass, the distant look of focus on her face, accentuating her lips… her ass, especially… I couldn't help but check her out. My throat was dry, like sandpaper. As she straightened up, turning back around to me with a gallon of Neopolitan and a smile, I swallowed.

"You like that shit?" I teased, my voice a little hoarse.

"Yep," she replied with a smirk, slowly walking up to me and pushing the carton into my chest. "I do." I let the ice cream fall from my hands into the basket as she walked away, still smiling. Once I snapped out of it I hurried after her.

When I reached the counter there was someone there with Mia. It was Johnny DiMarco, a guy from our grade; one of those guys who liked to trip the gay kids in the hallways. His gray eyes flickered to me in recognition as I approached, but otherwise his attention was focused on Mia. I caught some snatch of conversation about a shooting over at Degrassi as I walked up with the basket.

"Hey," Mia said breathlessly. "Have you met?"

Johnny scanned me again, obviously disinterested. "Jane, right?" he acknowledged with a short upward-nod of his head.

"Yeah."

"Yeah, I know your bro." He turned back to Mia. It was fine I was invisible next to her, I didn't care. That's what he was next to her, too, to me.

Mia turned to look at me though, her brow quizzical. "You have a brother? Does he go to Lakehurst?"

But fuck it. I wasn't ready for this, not yet. Luckily, I knew from practice that deflection wouldn't be hard.

"So Johnny," I said loudly, "What are you doing tonight? Gonna be at the Ravine?"

The clerk came back with Johnny's cigarettes; I really wasn't fazed that the guy didn't ID him. Johnny looked plenty old enough, and even if he didn't I was willing to bet any money that he had a fake in his wallet. Besides, the Mini-Mart in this neighborhood probably wouldn't even card a twelve-year-old.

"Yeah," he shrugged nonchalantly, paying and pocketing. "Me and some people, you should come. If you want." I knew he was really only talking to Mia; he wouldn't have cared less whether or not I tagged along.

Her eyes brightened at the offer, and I knew that I had definitely picked the right maneuver to change the subject. It was frustrating, the measures I had to go to sometimes. I knew, with a sense of begrudging unease, that I might regret this. Goddamn sacrifices.

But she turned to me first, and shot me a questioning glance. "I don't know," she said contemplatively. She was hesitant for the sake of the plans we had made that night, but I could tell she kind of really wanted to go. For whatever reason, she was interested in Johnny. And honestly, the girl had really shitty taste. I would have said so even if I hadn't been just the slightest bit jealous; the guy was scummy.

"You should go," I shrugged. This was me being gracious and unselfish.

Mia looked back at me, apprehensive. "You wouldn't go with?"

Another shrug. "Not my scene." She had better hurry up and decide, Johnny was looking bored.

"I couldn't go without you," she said to me loyally, with a frown. My chest automatically flooded with gratitude and relief.

"Really, I don't wanna hold you back," I protested halfheartedly. Johnny looked disappointed. Tonight was a lost cause for him. Mia glanced at him, hesitantly, and then back at me.

"Sorry, not tonight," she said to him.

I should have known the girl wasn't going to flake out on me, but still, I tended to be pretty jaded and usually expected the worst. I especially didn't want to get my hopes up with Mia, it seemed too good to be true that she could be cool in so many ways and also pick me over some guy. Things never seemed to go right for me when I – you know – _liked_ a girl, so it was still a bit of a shock.

I wasn't about to trick myself into thinking she could ever like me back, though. That would be just too good to be true.

Hours later, rolling and turning over to try and sleep, Mia and I lay sprawled on my basement floor on a mess of pillows and blankets. It was a pretty ghetto sleeping arrangement, like pretty much everything else we did together at my house, but she didn't seem to mind this either. I was glad. A girl like Holly J. Sinclair, this shit definitely wouldn't fly with her; not to say I'd probably even get to the point where she'd be spending the night in my basement in the first place. But with Mia, with me and everything I could offer her, she was chill. I may have been poor, but I still had pride. And you know, I think she was the same way.

"Hey," I said hoarsely, face-up on my back to the ceiling I knew was up there somewhere in the inky darkness.

"Mhmm?" she murmured from a foot or so – maybe a bit less – away from me.

"Sorry about before. With Johnny."

"It's okay," said her disembodied voice from my right. "I mean, I did kind of want to go, but if you didn't then I didn't either. If that makes any sense."

"It does," I sighed, my mind racing. I paused. "Kind of. Why, though?" I was a pro at pushing my luck.

She giggled, and, as much as my pride hated to admit it, I melted just a little bit. "Because," she said, "I'm not a total bitch?"

I grinned, waiting for something real.

"No, but really." Her voice lowered, softened (but not too much, I didn't want to imagine things). "You're a really good friend, Jane. The best I've had in a while. I wouldn't bail on you for some guy."

"Bros before hoes," I croaked feebly, too stunned to say anything remotely profound. I really did mean something to her? It wasn't totally irrational to hope?

I heard the sound of her body shifting over there, could almost picture the thoughtful cast of her nose, her eyes. "I mean, I hope I could say the same for you, right?"

Me? Ditch Mia for some guy? Never. The irony.

"Right," I breathed, still looking at the ceiling and blinking once. My jaw was clenched, for some reason. A beat passed, and I could have sworn, through the pitch dark, Mia's eyes were on me.

"Do you like anyone right now?" she asked slowly.

Suddenly, I felt flushed with dull heat. Put on the spot. "No," I replied curtly, drawing a blanket up to my chest and turning over, my back to her.

"Nobody at _all_?"

"Nobody at all." _Nobody but some girl. Yeah, a girl, 'cause I'm queer. Oh, and by the way, she's you. _

"I don't know, I guess I'm just wondering. You never, like, talk about any boys-"

"Yeah, well," I interrupted. "It doesn't really matter." I couldn't stand to talk about this with her. Not now, not yet. For some reason, I just locked up.

"I guess," said her voice from behind me a few seconds later.

That was the last thing we talked about before I pretended I was tired. But I couldn't sleep; I was kept up knowing that Mia's eyes were on me, wondering something in her mind. It kind of scared me to think what she might have been thinking about me, stiffening my body under those covers like a coiled spring. But sometime during the night hours we both dropped off, and when I woke in the morning I was on my stomach, my head facing her.


End file.
